Her Name
by caynaise
Summary: After Chat Blanc is gone, Chat Noir remembers: her and him, before he has to forget.


**I have nothing to offer but I had feelings**

* * *

White. White all around him, bleached vision fading into colours, then shapes familiar to him but wrong, twisted, broken.

One shape, one colour that stands out among the rest, a beacon of sameness, of reassurance. He blinks at her, his Lady, his love, his freedom, aware of the silent wasteland gaping at him from every direction, but his heart feels light, so light, and he can't remember how he got here.

The sensation of waking up from a long sleep, refreshed, safe and warm in the blanket of her smile. Dreams muted in that white nothingness, but their unknown contents spark the beginnings of dread.

Butterflies and roses and fear.

Chat Noir keeps looking at his Lady, says her name like he's done a thousand times, because if she's here it means everything is okay.

Flaxen hair and black energy and iron beams. Claws on concrete, the world spinning around him, crawling, pleading, pain. _Help me save me I want this to stop I don't want to feel please Marinette—_

Ladybug is speaking to him, and everything is not okay. She is his Lady, but not. She doesn't know. She doesn't love him. She isn't happy he knows. He isn't supposed to.

Where has his Lady Marinette gone?

Comfort fast fading, ruin and silence closing in, he shuts his eyes. Little cat on a rooftop, little boy in a mansion, in trouble again. He made the wrong choice in not choosing, in keeping her secret, in saving her, and her disapproval will destroy him.

She isn't disapproving, just sad. Oh. She doesn't know.

Every cell in his body screams for release, his head splitting open from things he can't unsee or unhear, can't divulge because she needs to go back and fix them, fix him, this whole mess, and she can't know. He won't let her.

Her arms are home, and it's all he can do to resist melting into them. With a smile and a promise she's gone, and as the circle of light swallows her he crashes to his knees, heedless of the sheer drop from the Tower's uprooted base.

The wait is too long. His breath rattles in his chest, turns to gasps that do nothing to dampen the ringing in his ears, residue of the blasts from his own hand that silenced a city.

"M-Marinette …"

* * *

Her name became more than just a name, that day. Or rather, it always had been, from the moment he came to associate it with courage and kindness and certainty, long before he knew it as red in the darkest of nights.

Yet one mistimed action, one happy accident, and suddenly it was everywhere, seeping into his thoughts in soft pastel shades. Pink. Gentle. Somehow turning him into an even bigger lovestruck mess than red alone ever did.

No wonder he wasn't allowed to know her identity. The power she had over him as a complete, unified entity was terrifying.

Marinette. Marinette.

Calling out her name at school the next morning before he'd swung both legs out of the car because for all Adrien Agreste's patience of a saint, Chat Noir couldn't wait. The way she sprang up and squeaked as if a pogo stick had launched her into the air unbidden and he felt like his heart would burst because she didn't detest him after all.

In class, mouthing her name while Plagg nudged him in the ankle with increasing disgust before muttering a slew of probably cheese-related insults and diving back into his bag. Sitting there watching strands of Marinette's loose hair kiss the back of her jacket was worth every bit of the stench of stockpiled revenge camembert that confronted Adrien later.

"Kid, you're being ridiculous," Plagg told him through the thick dairy haze spreading across his room. "Not enough to almost get yourself killed for her on the daily?"

Adrien didn't care. He was happy, and she was happy too, even if she didn't fully understand why. Who could possibly have the right to take that away from them?

He saw it firsthand. Ladybug positively glowed now, and even her mask couldn't conceal the rosy flush in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes. Chat had to admit he wasn't above gloating when she caught herself gushing about this wonderful boy who had swooped into her life, but given he could hardly be jealous of himself it was small wonder she seemed more agreeable to her partner these days.

"Lucky guy sounds purrfect, m'lady," he said, hoping the glint in his eye would slip her notice. "I'm happy for you."

She turned to him, caught off guard, the laugh snatched from her face for a moment. "I—Thanks, Chat, I didn't mean to—I know this can't be pleasant for you but you're being so nice and—"

"Hey, don't sweat it. What are friends for?"

"You really mean that?"

"I'll always be your friend, Bug."

She was so heart-achingly beautiful when the moonlight settled on her face, tranquility like still waters. "I know. And I'll always be yours."

He yearned to rip off his mask right then and there, to be whole in her eyes like she was in his, for her to take the fragmented pieces of him and put them together with needles and thread and love and care.

But he'd promised her he would honour their agreement, honour the rules. Even if he'd already broken them.

He should've realised he couldn't make a commitment halfway.

* * *

_Marinette._

She came tumbling down on top of him, a flash of red, yoyo rolling on cement, and he bit back the exclamation that would've given him away. "Ma—uh—Mating season for butterflies, isn't it?" he blurted out, gesturing feebly to the patch of lawn beside them, and swore he heard Plagg laughing from his hiding place.

In Adrien's defence, he'd hit his head pretty hard. Hard enough to warrant a trip to the hospital just in case. The magic ladybugs worked their magic in the end, but Ladybug insisted.

God, he loved her.

"I'm fine, really," he said, but part of him wanted not to be just so she could fuss over him.

She fussed anyway. Of course Marinette would. Even after he was given the clear she seemed hesitant to leave him, gloved hand coming up absently to touch his hair from force of habit before she gasped and flailed backwards in realisation. Adrien bit his lip to stop himself from laughing or crying—possibly both—and wrapped her in a fierce hug. He felt her intake of breath, then a long, slow sigh, the world rushing away from them, her nose in the crook of his neck, and she broke away all too soon but any longer and he might have purred, and she suspected.

He wouldn't have, without the suit, but it was less painful than thinking about how much he needed her to _see._

* * *

He thought she'd be angry when she found out, that there'd be consequences (there were, of course, but not in the way he expected). Instead she was _grateful. _And he was whole. With her, like with no one else, he was loved and free.

If she was a little less cautious than before, a little blinded, he ignored it. Love did that to people.

Anyone else could afford to be caught up in this giddy, breathless whirlwind, to be reckless, be human—to ride out the wave of frazzled irrationality together before it settled into something quieter and more constant. Anyone else … but they could not.

* * *

"Marinette …"

Chat's arms quake under the strain of holding himself up when all he wants is to fall, forget. Forget about butterflies and roses and silence and water.

Forget his Lady who is dead.

The tears stick, trapped by the protruding mask edges under his eyes for a lingering second before cascading free.

Her laugh, her touch, the star cluster of freckles on her skin when he leaned in to kiss her, the happiest days of his life—

White turns to red, a sweeping gust of ladybugs, a benign flood after the one that left devastation in its wake. Warmth, enfolding him as if she were here. Chat collapses on the foot of the Tower.

"I l-love you, _ma Marinette _… always … I—" he gasps, "I promise, dammit … I p-promise …"

Then he does what's as natural as breathing, and closes his eyes and trusts her. Lets her fix this broken world, and the one thing that was right.


End file.
